1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems for monitoring or operating plants that includes safety system equipment and non-safety system equipment with the use of images and, more particularly, to a monitoring and operation image integrating system of plants such as nuclear power plants that requires to have a high safety.
2. Description of the Related Art
In conventional plant monitoring and operation systems, to ensure safety of plants, separation is established between safety system equipment and non-safety system equipment, or monitoring function is separate from operating function.
From the viewpoint of such functional separation, an operation screen and monitoring screen of a system is separated, or a monitoring and operation screen of a safety system and a monitoring and operation screen of a non-safety system are physically separated.
In addition, the “safety system” refers to equipment capable of performing a function to immediately stop a nuclear reactor, to start the operation of engineering safety facilities, and thus to reliably obtain the safety of the power plant, for example, in the case of a nuclear power generation plant and at the time of occurrence of any abnormal transient change or danger of the plant.
The “non-safety system” refers to equipment for making normal start and stop, monitoring and control operations during output running and the like of the plant.
For example, the Japanese Patent Publication (unexamined) No. 114516/2005 discloses an “information providing device of a nuclear power plant comprising a first display to which information from systems forming a nuclear power plant is inputted, and which displays in a fixed way items of showing a safety state of the nuclear power plant at all times; a second display to which information from systems forming the nuclear power plant is inputted, and which displays an operation state of the entire nuclear power plant; a controller to which information from systems forming the nuclear power plant is input; and a third display functioning as operating means to which information is inputted from the mentioned controller to display individual operating states of the devices or apparatuses forming the nuclear power plant, and which outputs operation signals with respect to those devices and apparatuses to the controller.
That is, this Japanese Patent Publication (unexamined) No. 114516/2005 discloses a “plant monitoring and operation system” in which a monitoring and operation screen of a safety system and a monitoring and operation screen of a non-safety system are physically separated.
In such a conventional plant monitoring and operation system, individual displays (CRT, liquid crystal displays, and the like) for monitoring or controlling the operation of a plurality of safety system equipments and non-safety system equipment are required corresponding to each individual equipment.
As a result, a problem exists in a larger central control panel for monitoring or controlling (operating) the whole plant.
Moreover, a plant operator (plant manipulator) has to manipulate a large number of displays for the monitoring and operations, and thus another problem exists in heavy workload.